Keith Street

Mitchell Library, Glasgow Collection, Postcards Collection

A postcard showing the north end of Keith Street in Partick c 1901. In the 18th century the street was known as The Goat (from the old Scots word for a trench or ditch) and became Kelvin Street before it was renamed once more. The contrast of old and new Glasgow is clearly visible with the row of low houses built in the early 1800s faced by late-19th century four-storey tenement buildings on Dumbarton Road.

The houses pictured here were demolished in the 1930s. At the beginning of the 21st century the corner site is well known as the Comet corner, because of the long-established electrical goods retailing shop which was built there c 1970s.

There is an old Society of Friends burial ground on the west side of Keith Street, gifted to the local Quaker community by John Purdon in 1711. The last burial was in 1857. Another John Purdon was one of the local men who built the village school on the east side of The Goat in 1790.

Reference: Mitchell Library, GC Postcards

Reproduced with the permission of Glasgow City Council, Libraries Information and Learning